Menu

last episode

Finale

Fairly Legal wrapped up a few storylines Friday night. The season finale is titled “Finale” and as the show has not yet been picked up for a third season, the episode could work as a series finale.

In tonight’s season finale, written by Executive Producer Peter Ocko and directed by Anton Cropper, several plotlines came to a head. In a somewhat awkwardly structured narrative, an employment termination mediation involving a lesbian couple who worked at a local television station led to a quashed news story about a mysterious corporation that had received favors from the city. This conveniently, if unconvincingly, tracked back not only to the city District Attorney (Esai Morales), whose reelection Justin has been challenging, and who Kate has now forced out of the race, but to the billionaire (Lloyd Owen) Lauren has been sort-of-dating, although she knows he’s under investigation by the FBI. Meanwhile, Kate and Justin’s decision to find a place to move back in together fell apart, not unexpectedly, and although supposedly Kate was now going to take some time to herself, the episode’s ending made it clear that Ben has the upper hand in the competition for her affections. (The perfect apartment that he steered her toward–and that Justin rejected–turned out to be next door to his own.)

Rachel and Nora worked at the same news station and were also lovers — until they got fired. Within seconds of the “Fairly Legal” season finale beginning, Nora gets her job back, but Rachel only gets her work/stories back. Except one, and it’s a big expose.

Rachel had been researching a story that the city sold a big plot of land to the development company Selix owned by Paul Kaplan, and there were some shady dealings. So what happened to all her research? Reed & Reed, along with Ben Grogan (Ryan Johnson), are putting the puzzle pieces together, and as such, every single storyline of “Fairly Legal” season two seem to be tied together.

Donnie or Marie

In “Donnie or Marie” the show whittles the suspect pool down to two candidates: Richmond’s campaign manager Jamie Wright, and Richmond’s campaign adviser/ex-mistress, Gwen Eaton. It’s a “final two” scenario set up by last week’s closing shot, focusing on Gwen and Jamie, unnoticed amidst the crowd of onlookers following Richmond’s campaign speech.

How Linden and Holder do detective work throughout this episode is, they sit around in their car and make up wild theories and then act as if their wild theories are correct, and eventually — because the show is like this — they turn out to be correct. So they get Roberta to admit that Chief Nicole is an abusive lover and breaker-of-bones, and eventually twist her around into giving them this elevator footage that supposedly didn’t exist, which shows who the person is. (Also, it sounds like Roberta wasn’t the one that put up the haunted-tree picture, but whatever. I have a theory about that.*)

Although, technically, I’m not sure why it can’t just be considered the penultimate episode leading into the “real” finale that airs next week, but “Donnie or Marie” pushed viewers towards two possible killers. And, no, the Osmond pair did not special guest star and sing out who the killer was.

Are they the killers, or simply involved, and someone else is in on it. Michael Ames certainly seems to be important again, forgotten for much of the show’s run (he’s been in four episodes before tonight), but important enough to become a major anchor to the whole murder-a-teenage-girl conspiracy… but again, the important conversations that could reveal any tidbits about this happen off-screen or transferred via mind powers between characters in the many long scenes of people just staring at each other, or the conversations we only get one end of.

Valar Morghulis

The name of the finale episode Valar Morghulis is a common greeting in Braavos, meaning all men must die in High Valyrian. The customary response is Valar Dohaeris — all men must serve. Stand by as we live blog the final episode of season 2 with all the exciting action!

It’s a good thing HBO guaranteed Game of Thrones a third and a fourth season for the A Storm of Swords adaptation. The book is gigantic. Hell, I wondered how Benioff and Weiss would handle adapting a fairly large A Clash of Kings. For the most part, the writing duo did a terrific job in their adaptation, though the book-reader will always scrutinize the most minor parts of the adaptation and contrast changes made to the book and all that. As a whole though, Games of Thrones season two is a success.

Tonight’s finale did a great job of setting the stage for a sure to be dynamic season three, without relying on cheap cliffhangers or sex and death just for the sake of sex and death. We know where most of our characters will be headed when the action resumes, and in Thrones’ case, that’s even better than wondering what the hell happened to so-and-so when he got into that fight with what’s-his-face. In other words, the episode did a great job of wrapping up the season’s plethora of plot lines, while simultaneously opening up newer, deadlier paths to explore. God, I’m excited. Let’s break it down by character so we don’t get a headache.

“Valar Morghulis” had more momentum than most of this season’s episodes, though it would be hard to top last week’s stunner “Blackwater.” Some choice moments: Brienne’s “two quick deaths,” Tyrion’s confession to Shae, the new visage of Jaqen H’ghar, and the blue, glassy eyes of the white rider. As the army of white walkers faded out and the end credits played, I’ll confess I felt happy Season Two is over, though it does mean a long, tedious wait for season three. I never loved Book Two, “A Clash of Kings,” which served as the primary text for this second season. The book lacked momentum and Season Two often suffered the same pacing problems. In truth, I always felt the show was best when it deviated from the source material (i.e. the stolen dragons plot thread).

Goodbye

So, Glee, it’s graduation, time to say “Goodbye.” I had such high expectations. Under normal circumstances, this is a pretty good episode; but seriously, this isn’t normal circumstance! This is the season finale, I expected more – especially after last week. You build me up and then let me down. I mean, I made it through more than half the episode with no tears. I’m an emotional basket case when it comes to my television shows, and you give me almost nothing. Here’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

“Goodbye” really didn’t complicate itself with too much plot, or any for that matter, but it served as a way for the seniors to prepare for whatever’s coming their way while tying up some loose ends. For example, Quick fans got some closure as Quinn expressed what Puck meant to her and urged him to return to his bad ass ways, and she even got some respect and praise from her former cheerleading coach. Will came clean and admitted to Finn that he blackmailed him in order to get him join glee club (and Finn’s reaction was priceless). Both the seniors and the underclassmen got to serenade each other one last time. We found out where Mercedes and Santana are going now that school’s over, but more importantly we found out what’s in store for Rachel, Kurt and Finn.

Kurt begins the reflection by thinking about his in the closet and the dumpster beginning on this glee club. He goes into the auditorium where his father has a present/surprise for him. His father reminds him of when Kurt began to come out of the closet and performs the “Single Ladies” dance with Brittany and Tina, intercut with flashes to when Kurt did it in the first season. Kurt laughs and proclaims it the best gift ever. He tells Blaine about this, who wants to talk about their future. Kurt soothes him and promises a long distance relationship that will work.

Sanctuary for None: Part 2

After Helens stunt with the news, she has bought a little time for Henry and Nikola to figure out what is being used to keep the people stuck in the fifth ward. In the mean time, Will is starting no longer doubt his loyalty to Helen but try to figure out what exactly she has been doing. Addision is getting pressure above and finds out he doesnt have the control he thought he did and someone else is calling the shots above him. In an effort to get some answers he asks Will for some straight answers, which Will both doesnt have and wont give.

Will asks for 1 thing from Addison to try and help, access to the secure networks that the sanctuary was locked out of. Henry and Nikola figure out what is keeping everyone from leaving and its an invention Nikola created. This force field however can be manipulated to create an electronic storm that would instantly kill everyone in the fifth ward, an alteration that Nikola never intended and is very upset over. Helen tries to convince Caleb that they must leave, and she tells Caleb what they are planning to do with the devices. He refuses and wants to stand his ground. Helen thinks he is hiding something.

Biggie finds out what Caleb is hiding would ‘change the world forever’. Biggie finds a way to sneak the item out and get it to Nikola for testing. Biggie is beaten when Caleb finds the stuff missing. With some testing Nikola discovers its a praxian virus that when unleashed would force the dormant abnormal genes in all humans to manifest, resulting in the extinction of the human race. With Henrys help, they figure out a way to disable the power and get the people out of the fifth ward. Will talks with Addison asking for a stall on the final solution to get those people out. Addison plays ball knowing he doesnt have a say anymore and doesnt want to be a part of a mass genocide.

Afterbirth

American Horror Story ends to its horrifying first season with “Afterbirth” as Ben (Dylan McDermott) comes to terms with the loss of his family, and faces a new reality as another family expresses interest in the house and Constance (Jessica Lange) sets about raising Vivien’s surviving twin. In case you missed out on last week’s “Birth,” we’ve got all the ghostly twists and turns to hold you over until the next terrifying season!

This week’s installment, the season finale, is more of a denouement, in which most of the loose ends of this season are tied up while the table is set for season two. The episode opens “nine months ago” in Boston during the aftermath of Vivien’s discovery of Ben’s infidelity with Hayden. Ben is really hot to move to California, especially because of this great old house he’s found in the listings. And it’s a bargain to boot! Maybe it’s haunted, he quips (oh, if only you knew, Dr. Harmon…), but it’s perfect for them to put their lives–and family–back together.

Ben Harmon had been stupid enough to get himself killed, after uttering one of the greatest Ben Harmon’s Line Of The Week candidates in memory (“Yeah, you did,” said to a daughter who pointed out that she’d saved him the money he would have shelled out for college by killing herself and delivered almost as if he was sort of glad about it). He’d gone to get the baby, to take him out of the house, and he was stopped on the stairway by Hayden, who asked if he thought he was really going to just get away like that. Hayden and her home invasion crew strung him up from the ceiling—in a gruesome set-piece that used the House’s architecture very well—and dropped him there to die.

Occupation & Resistance

Between the two-hour long stress of the “Terra Nova” season finale, and the power outages at Candlestick Park for Monday Night Football and the Pittsburgh Steelers game (don’t hate), tensions were running high for me as our time-traveling pioneers dug their heels into their prehistoric home and waged war against the future. And some of it was relatively legit.

This is not to say that the finale was a great episode, and the premiere was equally great, with simply crap in-between. Certainly not. Rather, the premiere offered a glimpse into a potentially great series that could occur, and the finale behaved like that series had happened. But of course, it hadn’t. The finale was as riddled with horrible plot holes as what had come before – why didn’t the colony prepare for the face that the invaders might use an explosive? But there were glimpses, certainly.

After the big speech to conclude last week’s episode, the entire population was prepared to fight for their new home. Unfortunately, they weren’t expecting the onslaught that came through the portal. It’s a great way to start the episode: strip your protagonists of all their advantages and have them claw their way back to freedom and safety. A far more exciting scenario than simply having Terra Nova wait for an attack for the entire first half of the episode, which I have to admit, was what I was expecting.

This Is the Way the World Ends

Dexterseason 6 returns to reveal its twelfth, and final entry with this week’s shockingly revelatory season finale “This is the Way the World Ends” as our favorite serial killer faces his final confrontation with Travis Marshall after last week’s explosive “Talk to the Hand,” and Deb stumbles upon a shocking truth about her brother. “This is the Way the World Ends” sure had a lot on its plate to address for one episode, but optimism for the next few seasons don’t quite quell the issues that season 6 created.

Disgusting love spell broken. Hopefully. So we can all rest easy now. Unless we’re Debra, of course. We’re going to have to wait until next year but, man, I can’t even imagine how Deb will take this. Especially since she spends most of her life crying and tearing up at everything. I’m actually glad Laguerta addressed Deb’s crying in this episode because it had gotten way out of hand. Last episode, Deb teared up when she realized Laguerta betrayed Matthews.

This time, the discovered drawing indicates somehow that Travis will kill his next victim on the top of a tall building, so Deb scrambles all of her available officers to Miami’s skyscrapers to await Travis, who is planning to strike during a solar eclipse. In an attempt to create some stakes, the writers contrive a way for little Harrison to be Travis’ chosen sacrifice, which didn’t work because it required the writing to yank the characters every which way to pull it off, and because it didn’t succeed at raising the stakes.

After six seasons of inching Deb closer and closer to the truth about her brother, the show finally puts her at the point of truth, just as Dexter has stabbed Travis. What this means for Dexter, Deb and Miami Metro is absolutely anyone’s guess, but it’s certainly the best scene the show has had since Rita’s death. Michael C. Hall really does some of his best work here, even though I’m not sure how I feel about the last words of the season being “Oh God”. It comes off as just another completely unsubtle way the show has thrown in religion, and that doesn’t sit quite well with me.

The High School Reunion Part 2: The Gang’s Revenge

“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” wrapped up its seventh season in style tonight, with the gang trying desperately to show up their tormentors at their high school reunion. The switch in perspective in the final scene was one of the biggest laughs the show gave me all year, and that’s saying something, considering how strong this seventh season was. There was only one outright bad episode, “Frank’s Brother,” and even there I can respect that they were at least trying something different that didn’t work. (That, or I can again note that Frank tends to be much more useful for generating stories than generating laughs.)

It’s always been apparent that high school was a pivotal time for the gang, and none of them seem to have changed very much since those days. Dee may have physically changed – from the Aluminum Monster to some kind of beautiful bird beast – but she’s still that needy girl desperate for attention and acceptance. Dennis is still living under the delusion that he’s Big Man on Campus, while Charlie seems quite comfortable in his role as the huffing, spider-eating, atomic wedgie-getting weirdo who makes everyone laugh (in a bad way). Oddly, Mac’s defining characteristic in high school wasn’t his competitiveness or bravado. Instead, he was a narc who outed the school’s drug dealers so that he could become the top supplier (well, OK, that’s pretty competitive), earning him the nickname Ronnie the Rat. Why Ronnie? Well, thanks to the reunion nametags, we finally find out Mac’s real name: Ronald McDonald. The build-up and reveal of this was the funniest bit in the episode, and even more satisfying than the unveiling of Cosmo Kramer.

A Gorgeous Mosaic

Prime Suspect finishes up with the finale, “A Gorgeous Mosaic.” When a diamond dealer to the stars is murdered, they end up investigating Irish gangsters. Mark Sheppard (Leverage, Supernatural) guest stars as Blackjack.

On last week’s Prime Suspect, “Gone to Pieces,” Duffy showed his soft side by working on a model boat for his dead friend’s son. After Sweeney told him to leave the widow alone so she could get on with her life and move upstate, Duffy left the finished boat on his desk with a note saying it was for Owen, Jane’s boyfriend’s son. Duffy’s and Jane’s cases intersected when they discovered the hit-and-run victim and the man shot in his bathroom were connected. Jane and Calderon found out that the waitress at the strip club had been beaten and humiliated by the porn king, with the murder victims in the room. Turned out that they had been mentioning her teenage daughter like they wanted to get her into porn. Jane, knowing the murderer did it to protect her family, told the woman of an old case where a woman didn’t get a lot of jail time because she said it was like a dream and couldn’t really remember everything that happened. The woman took the hint and said everything was hazy like a dream.

Their victim, Simon, was killed execution-style. The three eyewitnesses—Fiona, Ira, and Anton—start fighting, and Anton wants money for his information. Simon’s wife, obviously very distraught, tells them a man called the house, threatening Simon if he didn’t call him back. She had told Simon dealing with black rappers wasn’t safe.